Chapter 282 – Return to the Core Area

Chapter 282 – Return to the Core Area

After getting a general understanding of the noteworthy situations in the area from senior Renée, they set off to return to the Academy Core Area.

Renée wanted to learn their method of digging thunderstorm night shelters, so she joined them on the road.

By Sunday evening, they finally emerged from the Hedge Wall.

Outside the Hedge Wall, the sky was dark and gloomy, the cold wind biting, and thunder faintly rumbled in the distance—another night of thunder was about to arrive.

Inside the Hedge Wall, the sky was painted with red sunset clouds, warm and pleasant.

Inside and outside were like two completely different worlds.

“Before going beyond the wall, I was full of curiosity about what was out there. But after actually going, I realized—inside the wall is the best!” Vasida exclaimed.

“Too bad by the time we figured that out, we don’t have much time left to stay inside the wall,” Sylph said.

On Sunday night, senior Renée dug a burrow with them in the Greengrass Plains and spent the night there. After learning the method, she returned to her lake island cabin—precisely because she couldn’t stay overnight at the Academy Castle at this time.

Camping out in other parts of the core area and being seen by junior students would damage a senior’s image.

The Academy Core Area was indeed the most comfortable, most convenient, and safest-feeling place.

“I used to think the Academy Dormitory conditions were terrible, but coming back now, I feel an extraordinary sense of security.

No wonder witches are so obsessed with building their own witch’s home—the sense of stability that comes from a safe dwelling is unparalleled.

Fortunately, we gained a lot from this trip out, so there’s no rush to head back into the Inner Region.”

Mo Lan had originally thought that with such a vast Inner Region, there wouldn’t be much progress in exploration in a short time.

She hadn’t expected the Inner Region to take the form of four great hazardous zones plus a ring of mountain forest.

There was no need to carefully explore Lone Peak Forest, Greengrass Plains, Green Marsh, and Yellow Sands—they only needed one or two safe flight routes to conveniently travel to and from the Academy Core Area.

The rest was simply finding a satisfactory location in the Inner Region to establish a dwelling, then gradually exploring the surroundings from there.

“Moira, Vasida, I won’t be going with you after this,” Sylph said. “The first time venturing deep into the Inner Region, I had no confidence, so pairing up with you to reduce the risk made sense. But now that I have some understanding of the Inner Region’s conditions, it’s time to face dangers and challenges alone to temper myself.”

“Exactly right!” Vasida deeply agreed and wholeheartedly endorsed this. “Things went too smoothly this time. Moira knows everything, and whenever I encountered something I didn’t understand, I instinctively asked Moira. Always relying on a companion’s help isn’t a good thing for a witch!”

“Alright then! Let’s each work hard on our own, and after we’ve built our dwellings, we’ll invite everyone over for a housewarming!” Mo Lan said.

“Deal! When the time comes, we’ll compare whose home is more beautiful and more comfortable!” Vasida said. “The loser has to drink a big cup of unsweetened Breadfruit juice!”

“One big cup is too few—at least three big cups! And Vasida, you can’t use the Devouring Stomach to drink on your behalf!” Sylph added.

“Now that you’ve said that, I’m going to take this seriously,” Mo Lan said. “I was originally planning to just use the terrain to my advantage and make a simple, safe dwelling. I was only going to live there for one year, but now it seems that won’t do!”

“Simple dwellings—after graduation, when you have nothing and no place to live, there’ll be plenty of time to experience that.

This is a great opportunity for us to understand our own preferences and needs for living alone, to prepare for building our future witch’s home!

If we have the ability to build something better, of course that’s preferable!”

“That’s right! Even if we only live there for one year, it’s still the first home we’ve built with our own hands! We can’t be too casual about it!” Both Vasida and Sylph had very high standards for this dwelling.

Mo Lan couldn’t quite understand their enthusiasm, but in order to beat her friends and avoid the punishment of unsweetened Breadfruit juice, she changed her mind and decided to put more care into this dwelling.

After returning to the Dormitory, Mo Lan refined her schedule for the academic year.

Exploring the Inner Region was certainly important, but in this final year of living in the Dormitory, she also needed to make good use of the convenience of traveling throughout the core area.

Time needed to be redistributed—exploration time and study time had to be separated.

During exploration, she could at most practice some Magic on the side, and mostly just offensive and defensive Magic at that.

But now, she still had Apprentice and Beginner-level Magic books to read in Prophecy, Psychic, Blessing, Curse, Summoning, and Necromancy.

The third-year library also had Intermediate to Advanced Magic books for every school of Magic—those needed reading too.

There was still a huge pile of miscellaneous books as well. Though they weren’t Magic books, sometimes they were even more useful than Magic books.

And then there were the Mo-Pic books in the library—those absolutely had to be finished before the end of third year. Otherwise, traveling between the Academy Core Area and the Inner Region in fourth year would be extremely inconvenient.

While exploring outside, she had to constantly be vigilant against environmental dangers, leaving little time for reading and studying.

She decided to simply divide her time: from now on, she would only go to the Inner Region for exploration during odd weeks, and stay at the Academy Core Area to read and study Magic during even weeks.

She would save all questions encountered during study and exploration for the Magic Q&A class on Friday mornings of even weeks.

Staying at the Academy Core Area during even weeks also meant she wouldn’t miss letters from Shana’s mother on even-week Sundays.

Potion brewing, fine processing and sewing of beast hides, tending to farm crops, and Alchemy practice could all be handled during even weeks.

She could also go to the Magic Training Grounds to practice—in the early stages of Magic learning, a certain amount of mechanical spellcasting drills was still essential.

After finishing the wilderness survival class on Wednesday of odd weeks, she could head to the Inner Region for exploration, and return before the Wednesday wilderness survival class the following week. Spending seven consecutive days outside would also allow for a wider exploration range.

The next day, Tuesday, Mo Lan had no classes. She processed all the plant and animal materials she’d brought back from the trip in the Dormitory, then began reading Magic books according to plan.

She had already read quite a few Prophecy Magic books. Witches had quite an extensive array of Prophecy Magic—each direction of prophecy and divination constituted its own spell.

Divining the location and direction of things was the Pathseeking Spell; divining the development trends of events was the Fortune-Telling Spell; divining weather and celestial phenomena was the Weather-Reading Spell; divining the past of things was the Origin-Tracing Spell; divining the future of things was the Precognition Spell…

There were many types of Prophecy Magic, but learning them all followed the same pattern: convert Mana into the power of prophecy, visualize in your mind what you wished to divine, and the power of prophecy would feed back an image or sound—that was the result of the divination.

Different levels of prophetic ability produced different levels of clarity.

However, whatever you saw was what you got—you should never try to see more.

The divination result fed back by the power of prophecy was the result within the diviner’s ability. Trying to see beyond that would invite the backlash of fate.

The most important thing in learning Prophecy Magic was controlling one’s own thirst for knowledge.

Magic itself would protect the caster, but if the caster insisted on breaking through Magic’s safety boundaries, there was nothing to be done.